Abstract: By evidencing a form of waste-induced paranoia, especially through the Fresh Kills Landfill in New York, Don DeLillo's Underworld and Thomas Pynchon's Bleeding Edge map out a new geography of the city that is being shaped by waste. The implicit connection between the landfill and the 9/11 attacks makes it a breeding ground both for conspiracy theories and for the unconscious of the city. The landfill becomes a symbol, not just of the Anthropocene, but of a process of exclusion that reflects social mechanisms, an enclaving that fails in its attempt at controlling the production of paranoia. Against the mental enclave that is so easily placed around waste, DeLillo and Pynchon explore how the category challenges boundaries to the point of becoming a hermeneutical and ethical case study.
Valentine Alloing (Sat,) studied this question.